Transfer music to a Sony Walkman (NW-E405) with Windows 10

Introduction

I still use my old Sony Walkman (NW-E405) that I bring to the gym. I don’t want to explode my brand new stuff with some dumbells or whatever.

So, here is the beast:

I almost never used Sony’s software like Sonic Stage or Sony CONNECT, they were way to complicated in my opinion and used a bunch of memory years ago. Instead I’m using MP3 File Manager (v2), easier but doesn’t convert track to ATRAC format.

Happened the mess

Everything worked great out of the box until I did the upgrade to Windows 10. Since that no way to drag & drop tracks with MP3 File Manager. In fact a barred circle show up when I want to transfer them (see below picture).

Fix it

At first, I tried to switch compatibility mods but no way to resolve the issue. Then I found some posts dealing with drag & drop issues with W10.

The problem seems to be related to Windows 10 UAC (User Account Controls) settings. It’s not perfect and can cause security issues but if you disable entirely this feature it should do the job.